![]() ![]() Running those (way too easy) WotlK-heroics actually gets interesting with goals like this, and I am really glad that many of them actually requires some thinking outside the box. Just very hard :P.Ĭomment by EiothCompleted mine today, and I must say that completing all these have been one of the most fun things I have done in WoW this far. But the argument from consumptionism, sound as it may be, is only a first step.Comment by 1497Here are the achievements sorted by dungeon:Įdit: I'm sorry, a few players have already completed this achievement, so all of these are possible. The upshot of all this is that conservatives have, or rather conservatives should have, important and interesting things to say on these subjects. It also makes me wary of, say, a "Marshall Plan for the cities." Cultural capital can't be bought it needs to be rebuilt, slowly, and there are good reasons to believe that this is exactly what's happening in many historically excluded communities. That was something I gleaned from Judith Shklar's American Citizenship: The Quest for Inclusion, though I'd hardly be surprised if Shklar is rolling in her grave over the fact that I've claimed her in this small way. Now I'll repeat, for the umpteenth time, way more money!" Well, it's not so much that our problems are bigger as that our problems are different. When we talk about the problems stemming from inequality, we're being very imprecise: we usually have in mind problems stemming from a lack of social cohesion, and more specifically from the proliferation of disrupted families. That is, Money Liberalism could be an essential instrument for achieving Civic Liberalism.Īgain, I don't actually think this view is right, but it's at least somewhat persuasive, which is more than can be said of the view that the economic immiseration of half or a third of Americans is the central fact of our time. Inequality isn't a problem because the hell of Anglo-Saxon capitalism is leading to people dying on their feet: it could be a problem "merely" because it corrupts our democratic institutions, a corruption that has corrosive effects on our life chances. ![]() ![]() Other views can just as easily fit this framework. Of course, my view is a little idiosyncratic, e.g., I tend to see things like, say, the tobacco settlement or a cap-and-trade system or Wal-Mart agitating for ostensibly "progressive" labor market regulations as examples of this kind of oligarchic self-dealing, etc. Though I'm pretty optimistic about American life, and though I cheer lustily for the market economy, it seems clear to me that something like this state of affairs already exists. Consider the ever-present danger that a wealthy elite will use its disproportionate political power to entrench its privilege. But it also doesn't establish that inequality is not a problem. This point, very narrowly understood, isn't very controversial. What exactly are the consumptionists telling us? My sense is that they are telling us that material deprivation isn't a pressing problem in the United States. But Kaus's framework is worth keeping in mind. I suppose I'm more skeptical about the ability of even the best-run bureaucracies to adapt to fast-changing circumstances. It's an attractive vision, though I can't say that it's my own. ![]() These institutions, in turn, would serve as engines of mobility and opportunity. His basic take was that while money inequality was a lost cause, we could create excellent schools and an excellent public healthcare system that all would be proud to use. In The End of Equality, Mickey Kaus drew an insightful contrast between "Money Liberals," focused on income and wealth, and "Civic Liberals," focused on our shared institutions. I think, emphasis on think, that this is the wrong way of looking at things. It often seems as though right-wingers are trying to make light of inequality by pointing to consumption inequality, and that left-winger take inequality seriously by zeroing in on income and wealth inequality as meaningful metrics. ![]()
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